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During my stay at Yverdon, I became acquainted with all the family of my friend Roguin, and amongst others with his niece, Madam Boy de la Tour, and her daughters, whose father, as I think I have already observed, I formerly knew at Lyons.
But, although she herself forgot Ginevra, the harm she had planted bore fruit. Little by little, the other young girls revealed to their mothers the strange events which were happening at the studio. One day Matilde Roguin did not come; the next day another girl was missing, and so on, till the last three or four who were left came no more.
The well-known and avowed intentions of Alexandre Crottat, head-clerk to Roguin, and the wealth of his father, a rich farmer of Brie, were certainly obstacles in the lad's way; but even these were not the hardest to conquer. Popinot buried in the depths of his heart a sad secret, which widened the distance between Cesarine and himself.
It was roused by a magnificent creature known as la belle Hollandaise in the annals of prostitution, for into that gulf she was to fall back and become a noted personage through her death. She was originally brought from Bruges by a client of Roguin, who soon after left Paris in consequence of political events, presenting her to the notary in 1815.
On the following day, Sunday, they received their friends. The families who made up their coterie met at each other's houses for little festivities, turn and turn about. While playing at bouillote, Roguin the notary placed on the card-table some old louis d'or which Madame Cesar had taken only a few days before from a bride, Madame d'Espart.
Claparon, therefore, to that extent was playing a genuine part; and he told whoever would listen to him that Roguin had cost him a hundred thousand francs. Du Tillet thought Claparon was not bold enough, and fancied he had still too much honor and decency to make it safe to trust him with the full extent of his plans; and he knew him to be mentally incapable of conjecturing them.
"That infamous Roguin is still connected with you," he began; "don't you think you ought to write and tell him to assist an old friend whom he has compromised, a man with whom he dined every Sunday, and whom he has known for twenty years?" "Roguin? A fool! his share is ours now. Don't be worried, old fellow, all will go well. Pay up to the 15th, and after that we will see I say, we will see.
Mademoiselle Roguin endeavored to make her wait on the staircase after the class dispersed, that she might prove to her the intimacy of Ginevra and the young man by entering the studio and surprising them together. But Laure refused to condescend to an act of espial which no curiosity could justify, and she consequently became the object of much reprobation.
"If my wife is well enough I will bring her." "Xandrot," said Roguin to his clerk, as they left the house, "give up all thoughts of marrying Cesarine; six weeks hence you will thank me for that advice." "Why?" asked Crottat. "My dear fellow, Birotteau is going to spend a hundred thousand francs on his ball, and he is involving his whole fortune, against my advice, in that speculation in lands.
Du Tillet, delighted to have found such a lever, exacted from la belle Hollandaise a promise that she would love Roguin for thirty thousand francs a year instead of fifty thousand, a service which infatuated old men seldom forget. One evening, after a supper where the wine flowed freely, Roguin unbosomed himself to du Tillet on the subject of his financial difficulties.
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